International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications

International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) is an international not-for-profit organization that promotes the use of agricultural biotechnology, such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). ISAAA is, in part, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. As of 2000, ISAAA focused its efforts on: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, in Southeast Asia; Kenya and its neighboring countries, Egypt and Zimbabwe, in Africa; and Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, and Mexico, in Latin America.[1]

Founding

ISAAA was founded in 1990 by Clive James, who remains chairman of the board.[2] According to James' biography, ISAAA was established to "facilitate the acquisition and transfer of agricultural biotechnology applications from the industrial countries, for the benefit of resource-poor farmers in the developing world" and ultimately "to alleviate hunger and poverty in the developing countries."[3]

"In 1989, the World Bank sponsored a conference in Canberra, Australia, to study the implications of biotechnology on agriculture. The Bank had commissioned Drs. Clive James (then Deputy Director General at CIMMYT) and Gabrielle Persley (then on sabbatical at ISNAR) to undertake a study of the potential future role of the private sector in agriculture in the developing world. Their study concluded that a new institutional mechanism was required to forge public private partnerships that would allow the private sector to share its proprietary science with small-scale and resource-poor farmers.

"ISAAA was incorporated in the USA as a non-profit organization in July 1991. Much preparatory work was done during that year by Clive James (who by then had hired the author of this ISAAA Briefs [Anatole F. Krattiger] as a consultant) to formally launch ISAAA in March 1992. This was done in conjunction with the opening of the AmeriCenter, hosted by Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, USA. Subsequently, the EuroCenter, AfriCenter, SEAsiaCenter, and Liaison Center for the AsiaCenter were established. The original plan had called for three centers in the North (North America, Europe, and Japan), each with two senior directors; and three centers in the South (Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia), each with one network coordinator...

"While the institution was being established, a number of projects were developed and implemented in Latin America, most notably the development of virus-resistant potatoes in Mexico with coat-protein technology donated by Monsanto (see ISAAA Briefs No. 7) and the development of diagnostics in maize (see ISAAA Briefs No. 9).

"ISAAA was led from 1992 to early 1994 by Dr. David Altman, by Prof. William Lesser during the remainder of 1994, and by the author of this ISAAA Briefs from 1995 to late 2000."